


Bury Me Face Down

by Scrunchles



Series: Bury Me Face Down [2]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, Sick Character, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-08-04 23:46:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16356602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scrunchles/pseuds/Scrunchles
Summary: Minimum wage, sickness, depression.  If there's a way out, Mako hasn't found it yet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is the preseries to Just Business. I've been waiting to write this for like two years hhhhh I'm so happy to start it.

Sometimes shit goes wrong in life.  People plan for it to go one way, but get sucked down a different road entirely.  They end up spending a few decades doing what they love and then have it ripped away from them.  

Mako stares at the popcorn ceiling of his home and wills his eyes to shut again.  He still has an hour before work.  It’s raining outside.  Work’s going to be shit.

Fifteen minutes later, Mako’s alarm goes off.  His eyes are still open, and he’s left with a deep seated resentment that he missed those crucial minutes of blissful nothing before he came back to this.  

His life.

Mako cracks his neck and then groans and stretches enough that his back cracks.  He lays there, feeling his body settle like an old house before he reluctantly drags himself from the bed to start his day. 

Coffee, clothing, breakfast, second coffee, more ibuprofen than the bottle recommends because acetaminophen will destroy what’s left of his liver.  His back ache eases by the time he climbs into his work truck and he tries not to think about the gorgeous motorcycle trapped under the dusty tarp and tucked around the north corner of his house, just beneath the little lean to he had set up.  One of his friends used to call it a “bikeport,” but he hasn’t seen her in a long time.  He hasn’t seen any of his friends in a long time.  He keeps saying if he ever doesn’t feel exhausted after work or on one of his days off, he’ll call them up and have drinks—well, _he’ll_ have a seltzer or a mocktail—and they can catch up on the year he hasn’t taken an indulgent ride on his bike or voluntarily had a conversation.

When Mako reaches the cemetery, he clocks in on the tablet that also stores his daily tasks and receives his work email.  He has three emails already.  One is a reminder from HR about renewing his health benefits.  Another is his boss telling him to fetch the backhoe and dig a grave for a sunrise service tomorrow morning. 

Mako rubs the bridge of his nose and replies that he’ll need digger pay for the time it’ll take him to do the job.  It’s not in his ten-an-hour job description.  Then, he puts on his massive plastic poncho and begins cleaning up the trash—beer cans from kids having a go of it, plastic flowers that don’t serve any purpose other than to annoy him, he rearranges a teddy bear and fire truck on a grave that’s depressingly recent.  The soil has settled and grass is just barely starting to begin to peek out.  He gently touches the gravestone before moving on down the line, careful to walk between the plots and around the feet rather than across the graves.  Once the trash is cleared and some of the graves have been straightened, Mako gets his trimmer and deals with weeds and a few spots where the grass grows just a touch faster, as well as edging the paths that cut through the cemetery.  It stopped raining, but Mako keeps his hood up and his pancho on despite the beginnings of a muggy, sunny-but-humid midday.

He walks the perimeter to make sure that there’s no signs of refuse in the shrubbery that edges the growing cemetery, then heads back to his truck for lunch and an email check.  

_Just do what you’re told, Rutledge._

No sugarcoating—not that Mako needs it.  He rolls his eyes and takes an extra fifteen minutes on his lunch in retaliation.

It makes him sick to think of it.  He used to be a real rebel, used to say fuck it and walk out if a job was shitty to him.  Used to argue until his demands were met—usually though a combination of being at least a foot taller than whoever he was arguing with and being _right_.  He used to have conviction and principles.

Now he’s just here for the health insurance and the paycheck.  Not that either is much, but they’re something.

Better than nothing, he tells himself.   _Better than nothing_.

Somehow he never quite believes it.

Just as he’s maneuvering the backhoe up the path and around to the plot for the new hole, it starts raining again.  He goes slower, is extra careful as he edges around the massive mausoleum in the center of the graveyard, but the equipment is too heavy when it goes from grass to dirt and it churns mud and spins it’s wheels ineffectively.  Mako slams the digger into reverse and looks behind him just as the back end smacks into the old carved stone with a sickening crack.

Mako slams his foot on the break and clenches and unclenches his hands a few times.  He reluctantly pulls the backhoe forward and then gets off to take a look at the damage.  The rock isn’t cracked, but it looks like the front “door” has scooted to the side.  Mako’s not sure how, but the rock slate is about a foot to the right of where it had been for the past hundred and fifty years and still should be.

Mako sighs and is about to attempt to shift it back into place when he hears a hissing sound from further back in the stone crypt.  Great, a cat or possum snuck in.  Mako frowns and pushes the door open further.  Or, tries to.  It’s exceedingly heavy and he doesn’t know how the little nudge dislodged it, but he eventually gets it all the way open so that he can squeeze in and search for the animal.  This is one of the things that _actually_ is part of his fucking job.

The inside of the small mausoleum is simple, boxes for interring ashes line the walls while a large stone tomb of some long dead patriarch.  Mako hears the sound of movement in the shadows.  He squints and sees the glint of orange eyes in the shadows.  A cat?

Mako takes another step forward and then the shadow moves.  He’s forced back and the whole structure shudders beneath the force he’s pushed with combined with his off-balanced weight.  

This isn't an animal.  Thin-fingered hands hold his arms in a fierce grip and his neck burns.

_Good._

_So good._

The burning fades and Mako feels like he’s falling, but he never hits the ground.  It’s like falling asleep.  He slides into a dream—but it’s not a dream, it’s a memory.  Watching TV on his couch.  He just had a nice hot shower and a documentary about sustainable pig farms was starting… is starting? Mako sighs, relaxing because he’d rather be there than anywhere else.

“What the fuck is this?”

Mako looks to his left and frowns.  There’s a blonde man wrapped around his arm.  He looks comfortable aside from the look he’s giving Mako’s living room.  He has tight pants on and an open button up shirt that is decades out of date.  

He suddenly feels the stone against his back, his neck burns and his knees tremble.

“I know lovely, just hold a tic.”

Sensation fades and he feels like he’s dropping to his knees.  He doesn’t feel the impact and instead feels wind in his hair and sun so warm he can feel his tan deepening.  It’s a memory again. He’s riding his bike with thin arms wrapped around him, gentle lips at the nape of his neck and joy in his heart.  He remembers this ride.  It was one of the last big group trips they had.  This doesn’t feel right, but he hasn’t felt so at peace and free in so long he can’t help longing to give in.  He wants to exist in this moment for just a minute.  He wants to not be miserable. 

“Just relax.  You can stay here however long you want,” the man at his back says.  It’s more like he’s in Mako’s mind than speaking aloud.  The man laughs and then sighs pleasantly.  “The sun feels so good…”

The road stretches before them and the sun beats down.  Wind wicks away any perspiration and the hands on his sides begin to wander beneath his vest. Farms and trees, lakes and small, one-light towns fly past for hours on end.  His friends aren’t around them when he looks about.  It’s just him, the road, and the man he doesn’t know feeling him up.  He’s also pressing his lips against Mako’s neck in ways he didn’t know he could enjoy.

The kisses suddenly stop and a soft chuckle tickles his ear.  “Stay.  Enjoy.  Remember what makes you happy.”

Mako opens his mouth to reply, but then the hands are gone, the mouth disappears, and he’s alone on his bike.  He spends hours thinking about the ride, the man and how strangely he accented his words, and then he sees the cobwebs on the ceiling of the mausoleum and the dim blue of dusk filtering through the door.

Mako groans as he sits up and rubs the back of his neck.  He feels something weird, like a pockmark where it shouldn’t be.  There are more—they cover his neck, the back, the side, they trail across his collarbone.  

It stopped raining again.  A lump of yellow plastic stands bright against the shadowy stone and dust.  When he picks up his pancho, the seams are torn.  It looks like it was ripped from him and thrown to the side.  He tests the plastic with a few jerks and furrows his brow.  Jesus, what happened?

He pulls his phone out and takes a picture of his neck.  Small red spots dot his skin.  The sight makes his skin crawl, but they don’t hurt and he feels fine… he notices the time and groans.  His shift ended three hours ago.  Shit.

Mako takes a few more minutes of sitting and puzzling in fruitless circles before he rubs his face and stands up.  He feels dizzy—maybe he stood up too quickly—but he catches himself against the stone coffin.  Why was he in here?

Mako looks down at his ripped poncho and then takes a deep breath and picks it up.  He has his balance back.  He pulls the thing on and heads back out to dig the grave.  He would tell his boss he forgot to clock out tomorrow.  For now, he needs to finish up and go home.  A nice hot shower and then some tv sounds fucking wonderful.  Maybe he’ll even make cocoa.

There’s something he’s supposed to remember, but he’s got too much on his mind, even though he doesn’t really.  He’ll think about it later.  For now, he has a grave to dig, and he’s late for his medication.

When Mako gets home, he doesn’t immediately go inside like he planned.  He pauses at his bike and rests his hand on the dusty shroud.  Through the dust and plastic, the familiar shape of its seat greets his hand.  Firm, but comfortable for long, exhilarating rides up and down highways.  Mako has a sudden ache for a ride, and instead of going inside, he drags the tarp off of his bike.  It takes a few goes to get her up and purring, but once she is, he feels something in his chest ache.  Sitting on his bike makes him feel like a hole in his chest is repairing.

As he takes it out into the night, he feels the ghost of thin arms around him, though he doesn’t know why.  He shivers and rolls his shoulders to shake it off, but then—it feels more like a memory than a sensation—lips caress his neck and he remembers that there was something wrong with his neck earlier, wasn’t there?

Mako pulls over at a gas station and while his tank fills, he examines the light tics of skin on his neck.  It looks like… fuck, he’s not sure.  He’s never had this series of spots on him before.  Maybe like a cat attacked him but only with its teeth.  Several times.  Which doesn’t make sense because that shit would get infected easily and this— it’s just a smattering of pinkish scars against his tanned skin.  They’ll likely fade in a few days or a week.

A cat… there was something in the mausoleum, wasn’t there? An animal or something?  He racks his brain and ends up continuing to lean against his bike and think long after his gas tank is full.

He soon realizes it. Frustrated at the gap in his memory, Mako huffs out a scoff.  It must be from hitting his head or something—he woke up on the ground after all.

Mako rubs the back of his head, but doesn’t feel a bump or cut.  He realizes that he never made it inside for his medication.  Well… the cemetery was on his way—kind of— and being another hour late on his medication wouldn’t hurt, right?


	2. Chapter 2

Mako wakes up starving, which, in itself is odd because he can’t remember the last time he had an appetite.  It usually means he missed several doses of his meds and is about to spiral into a sickly rut.

He’s hungry and he’s not fighting to get out of bed.  His alarm is supposed to sound off in nearly an hour and yet he feels like he can take on the world.  Maybe he should go get a good breakfast before everything gets shitty.

He sees last night’s collection of pills still in its pill box, which only furthers his suspicion that this is just his body’s reaction to not being as heavily medicated.  He tries to remember why he might have forgotten them, but he draws a blank.  He can’t remember anything about the previous day other than feeling like shit and wishing he could tell his boss to fuck off.  Just another normal day.

The time loss is less worrying than it should be, really.  It happens.  Mako knows he’s been depressed for a while now, but dealing with it is just too much.  He can barely cope with his shitty health on top of a physically demanding job, why add the burden of seeking mental help to his thinly stretched will to live?

He takes his morning handful and then heads out to his favorite diner.  Well.  Was his favorite.  He hasn’t been there in months.  His bike is uncovered, and he would think that someone was fucking with it if he didn’t see the tarp carefully folded and right where he usually puts it.  He nearly covers it back up, but something stops him.  Nostalgia or his good mood, Mako pulls on a thick leather jacket over his work windbreaker and mounts up.

The waitresses are different, but the service is decent and the cooked breakfast is still fantastic.  Scrambled eggs, steak, roasted tomatoes and thick, crusty toast.  He has a second plate and nearly finishes it, eating until he feels sick.  Not the sick of illness, but a sick caused by bad decisions and excess, like the sick from drinking too much and then dancing or looking down from a high building.  It’s a sick that reminds him that he’s alive.  

He doesn’t look at the bill, just pays and leaves a decent tip before he heads home to switch out the bike for his work truck.  He clocks in on the way and once he gets to the graveyard, he sits with his windows open, enjoying the breeze and the sunrise. Enjoying.

It’s still a bit damp from the rains yesterday, but today will be far more pleasant for work.  There’s a ceremony just wrapping up and Mako sees a man nearly as short as he is wide shake hands with an elegant looking woman dressed in black with a _ta’ovala_ wrapped around her waist.  No one looks like they’ve slept and he can still hear a few mourners wailing.

Shit.  The sunrise service.  Torb is here.

Mako doesn’t bother raising his hand when he’s spotted, just lifts his chin and tries to go on about his day.  As he turns away from the group, he sees children laughing over by one of the mausoleums.  One of them walks forward hesitantly and then steps _inside_.  The others squeal and Mako sighs before adjusting his direction to walk across the well trimmed grass and soft soil.

“Go back to your parents,” Mako tells them.

The group of children scream and scatter like a disturbed group of ants, swarming across the graves without care and hurrying back to their parents a hundred meters away.  Mako snorts and then ducks into the structure to make sure that nothing got disturbed or left by them. 

There’s bright yellow plastic bits inside. He sees writing on a shred and picks it up.  It’s his pancho. He can see the familiar font spelling out “Lindholm’s Rest.” Probably forgot it last night and an animal dragged it into the crypt to tear into bedding or something. He collects the pieces into his pocket and then takes one last look around the place.  The stone crypt in the middle of the mausoleum is covered with a thick layer of dust and dirt, but he can see a dark gap where the lid appears to have been unsettled.  Weird.

Mako steps forward and rests his hand on the lid, about to slide it closed when he sees a single unnaturally orange eye open in the darkness.  

“Leave it open.” A voice rattles, but it’s too weak to echo off the stone. 

Mako _intends_ to shove the lid off, but instead he drops his hands, turns around and walks right the fuck out of the mausoleum. As he exits, he doesn’t hear the voice again, but there’s still something thick in the air— a compulsion to push the door of the mausoleum nearly closed.  

Then, he leaves.

When he arrives at his truck, he looks around in confusion.  What was he doing again? He must have come back for a tool.  Probably the edging tool to run around a few of the stones.  He gets it out of the back of the truck and then walks to one end of the graveyard to begin his task.  

Overall, his day is great.  He feels healthy and it isn’t until midday that his medicine begins to kick in with its side effects of nausea and headache.  Maybe he’ll be able to get in a ride on his bike before his digestive tract rebels after its brief respite from the meds.

He packs it in around six and pointedly avoids checking his email before he clocks out because he’s in a good mood.  Mako glances at the mausoleum as he leaves and has the nagging thought that he forgot to do something with it—not a project from his boss, but something he noticed.  He rolls his eyes and makes a note on his tablet to look into it tomorrow.  For now, he wants to get dinner in before he can’t stomach food anymore.  

——-

Mako stops at the store on his way home to get ingredients for a _real_ _dinner_.  He splurges a bit on a kilogram of whitebait, eggs, milk, kumara and a pint of ice cream for dessert.

When he arrives home, the sun has set but the front light didn’t kick on.  He’ll have to replace it while he’s still feeling decent, maybe while the kumara wedges bake.

It’s that darkness that doesn’t let Mako see the willowy figure sitting on his bike until he’s nearly in the door, his keys already in the lock.  He squints in the darkness, not sure if he’s seeing something, but then a flash of ambient moonlight catches in bright orange eyes.  The first thing that occurs to him is that it’s a cat, but the eyes are far too high up for it to be true.  

“Get the fuck off my bike,” he says.

“Feisty,” a raspy voice croons in the still air.  “I should let you eat first,” he says, and it’s such a strange remark that Mako sets his groceries down and pockets his keys.  

“I said, get off my—“ 

He moves.  Not faster than Mako can see, but certainly faster than he can move himself.  Faster than he’s seen anyone move before and he’s been in fights with some agile shitstains.  Mako gets his hand up to guard against whatever this bright eyed man has in store for him, but he brushes the arm away as if it’s nothing and does something Mako doesn’t expect; he goes for Mako’s throat— with his mouth.  

He has dejavu, but he knows he’s never felt this sensation before.  He’s falling but there’s no ground to catch him.  Darkness surrounds him until the salty spray of the ocean mists against his face and the sun warms his back.  When he opens his eyes, he’s surfing.  The surprise makes him lose his balance and he bites it just as the wave starts to crest.  Mako surfaces with a gasp and then shoves his surfboard beneath him to get back on top of it.  Once he’s seated, he looks around for other beach goers, but there’s no one.  Ngarunui Beach has never been this dead during the summer.  

“It’s just you and me, love.”

There are arms around his waist.  He’s as trim as he was when he was in his thirties.  Trim being very relative.  trim enough for long, spindly arms to wrap around his thick middle.

“Think I prefer you now.  You look stronger.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Mako asks.  His mind moves sluggishly, and though he would like to rip the arms around him from their sockets, his hands just touch the arms and then slide down to cup the hands linked above his belly button.  

”Mmmm… there’s time for that.  Let’s just enjoy the warmth.  The sun...”

Mako frowns.  The suggestion sounds strange and he still doesn’t know who this is, but the suggestion makes sense.  The sun is nice, and there’s no reason he can’t relax a bit.  The water is calm… 

Mako guides the surfboard in and the arms vanish.  He looks around before sticking it in the sand and sitting with his back against it.  Still no one.

Once he’s settled in to watch the waves, blonde hair appears before his face.  It’s long enough to be pulled back with a piece of leather, and leads down to a pale neck and back.  The knobs of the man’s spine stand out beneath his skin due to his posture.  As soon as Mako has the thought, his back is straight.  He doesn’t straight _en_ it.  It’s just.  Straight.

“Sorry, that’s off putting, right? It’s been a while since I moved around like this.”

The word is heavy but Mako gets it out anyway.  “Who?”

The man turns around, but it’s too fast and Mako jolts awake.

He’s on his couch.  His head is spinning and he feels like he’s going to be sick.  This must be his meds catching up with him.  He didn’t take them yet this evening… did he?  Fuck.

There’s noise in his home.  From the kitchen.  Mako takes a deep, steelinga breath and then tries to stand up.  He loses his balance immediately and the couch groans a warning at him. 

“Stay put!” A reedy voice commands from the direction of his kitchen.  He can smell savory kumara baking and the salty tang of whitebait fritters.  “Eat the ice cream!” 

There’s a spoon and some goopey, half-thawed ice cream on the coffee table.  Mako wants to know what the fuck is going on, but his hands move without him and he’s halfway through the ice cream when he hears an odd gait come through the hall to the living room.  

Mako looks around and feels his breath leave him.  Vivid orange eyes are half lidded by blonde lashes.  They’re more focused on getting the plate of food onto the table than worried about the two hundred and fifty kilogram man whose house he’s in.

“Don’t ask me who I am again,” the man says, his accent is Australian with a smidge of English.

“I’ve never seen you before,” Mako says, setting the mostly-liquid ice cream down and reaching for the plate.  He stops himself and tries to rationalize why he’s just doing what this man says.  Why he trusts the food he put in front of him.  

“I know, mate, and you still haven’t,” he replies, his chipper tone turning hollow and strained.  “Fuck me, mate, you have _got_ to stop taking those bloody drugs,” the man says distractedly.  “Thought I told you that… ah, shit I forgot I made you forget!”  He smacks himself in the forehead and then throws his hands—hand and arm, actually, he’s missing half of his right forearm—in the air with a self-deprecating laugh.  

Mako feels his mind come back to him a bit as the ice cream settles in his belly and the food on the plate starts to smell unbearably delicious.

“Eat,” the man encourages.  “Eat, I’ll wait.”  He smiles like there’s a joke hidden in the words.  Mako sees that his canines are pointed—likely tacky implants.  “That’s rude, mate,” the man says. What, he can order Mako around like a child _and_ read minds?  “Nah, mate, I made you a nice dinner and now you’re just sitting there, that’s what’s rude.”  His grin stretches wider.  Too wide.  As if he’s still reading Mako’s thoughts, he reigns in the corners of his mouth and settles into a less manic expression.

Mako reaches out and stabs the fork into a cube of baked kumara.  It’s tender but not mushy.  He raises it to his mouth and takes a bite.

“There we go,” the man coos.  “Make sure you eat a good breakfast tomorrow and do not, _do not_ take that bloody medicine, yeah?”

Mako shakes his head and sets the fork down. This is ridiculous.

“That’s an order,” the man says firmly.

Mako’s nose wrinkles in a sneer and he opens his mouth to tell him what he thinks of being ordered, but what comes out is, “sure, boss.”

“Haha! I like the sound of that,” the man says, his grin stretching uncomfortably wide again.

Mako grits his teeth and the fork in his hand bends with the force of his grip.  

“Crickey, mate, this is _exhausting_.  If you keep fighting me, I’ll make you forget again.”

Mako stops fighting.  If something is happening to him he wants to know about it.  How many times had this person been here, in his house and he didn’t even know who or what he was?

“Once.”

“Stop that,” Mako snaps.

“About to be twice,” the man threatens.

Mako purses his lips and exhales hard.  

“We can talk tomorrow.  For now, food and then bed.”

Mako feels himself forced to nod and takes the bent fork back up to resume eating.  The fritters are great and he scarfs them down quickly, then the potatoes and then he drinks the remnants of the ice cream.  

“There we go, now try standing up.”

Mako pushes himself to his feet.  He feels… better.  More like himself, even before he got sick.

“Alright, now, remember—no more pills, straight to bed.” 

Mako turns to walk toward his bedroom, then feels something slip, like an intangible grip loosening.  He hauls back and punches the stranger before he even thinks about it.


End file.
